I’m Cold, Please Touch Me: The Freezer Door by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Sycamore wrote this book long before pandemic time, and yet it couldn’t have arrived at a better moment.
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Posts Tagged: Joni Mitchell
Swinging Modern Sounds #104: Paradise
For me, performance is a conversation with the sacred and timeless, the sublime.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #102: Ten Influential Albums
Music columnist Rick Moody writes on ten albums that influenced him through his life.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #93: Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy
I see both subjectivity and objectivity as constructions.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #92: Perfection
You will now find some version of the list below. It is imperfect.
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Sweet Bird
Every story needs to begin in a place of stasis, a comfortable zero.
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Blue, Blue Windows: On Writing and Helplessness in the Age of Trump
The brain in the jar wants out, you know. It just can’t do anything about it.
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An Investigation into Fate and Freedom: Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
Everyone, no matter how strong or independent, is subject to forces like war, or time, or the claims of family.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #82: Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark: A Symposium
…yet she did what she did, and in the process made the most successful album of her career.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Summer of Families
“What do you think about this,” he said, measured and cool. “What if we offer a service where people can pay to be in our family, but only for a few hours.”
...moreAlbum of the Week: Nadia Reid’s Preservation
“I remember recording the tracks, it was about 11 at night, and I felt almost transcendental, as if I was out of my body, singing these words to myself. That’s what these songs are: a confession to my future and past self.” So Nadia Reid introduces her sophomore album Preservation, out now on new British label […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Eileen Myles
Eileen Myles on recording her new poetry record Aloha/irish trees, the relationship between poetry and comedy, and finding safety in social media.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #77: People Give Me Things, Part One
[T]he thing about receiving music from other people is this: there is always some grace associated with the transaction.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #73: Prince Rogers Nelson, Guitar Player: A Symposium
I started thinking about additional, more slantwise ways we might talk about his legacy. What if I organized a bunch of guitar players?
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Swinging Modern Sounds #72: Urban Pastoral
It’s like a landscape that you can’t know until you’ve seen it through four seasons, until you’ve seen it on days gray and bright.
...moreWatch Prince Cover Bowie’s “Heroes”
Prince played two shows in Toronto on the Piano & A Microphone tour, and his sets featured a series of covers: the artist performed his take on David Bowie’s “Heroes,” along with Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” Vince Guaraldi’s “Linus & Lucy,” and Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain.” Watch recordings of the covers at Pitchfork.
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Paul Lisicky
The Rumpus Book Club talks with Paul Lisicky about his new book The Narrow Door>/em>, how much of your story you own, and the importance of reading your own work aloud.
...moreTaylor Swift, Feat. Willie Shakespeare
Taylor Swift, Cole Porter, Joni Mitchell, Mumford and Sons—they’ve all got a surprising musical forefather in the Bard of Avon. Looking for more literary musical references of the week? Check out the favorite tracks of Man Booker prize-winning author Marlon James over at the BBC.
...moreDifferent Voices
In the hilariously titled “The Fragile Ears of Men,” Leah Finnegan analyzes the gender politics of female singers’ voices, and why male music critics are so irked by Joanna Newsom: But really, what is a musician’s voice if not distinctive? Isn’t that… good? Entire pieces have been written about the voices of Bob Dylan and […]
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Swinging Modern Sounds #67: The Franchise Restaurants of Song
Musician Owen Ashworth on his new album, Nephew in the Wild, literary influences, self-expression in songwriting, and how becoming a father has changed his work.
...moreAll We Want for Joni Mitchell
After months of worry and rumors about Joni Mitchell’s condition after her late-March hospitalization, it has been revealed that the singer is being treated for a brain aneurism. Although Joni Mitchell is being released to a rehab facility, she is still in serious condition, sources say. Watch a young Joni perform and a more experienced (and […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Sarah Tomlinson
Author Sarah Tomlinson talks about ghostwriting, her father and childhood, the tradition of confessional writing, and her new memoir, Good Girl.
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The Rumpus Interview with George Hodgman
Editor and author George Hodgman talks about his new memoir, Bettyville, what makes for a good memoir, and returning to his hometown of Paris, Missouri from New York to take care of his aging mother.
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The Rumpus Interview with Shawna Virago
Musician and songwriter Shawna Virago discusses her trajectory as an artist, deciding to use Kickstarter to fund her new album, and what it’s like to be top Google hit for “San Francisco dominatrix.”
...moreThe Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Carmen Giménez Smith
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Carmen Giménez Smith about her poetry collection Goodbye, Flicker.
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Albums of Our Lives: Joni Mitchell’s Blue
Bliss, melancholy—Blue is both at once, just as the holiday season is for me.
...moreResident Bohemians: Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen
THE POET AND THE LADY OF THE CANYON In 1967, two young Canadian songwriters met at songwriter’s workshop at the Newport Folk Festival, and had a romance. They were both about to become very famous, thanks to Judy Collins, who had introduced them and who would bring their songs to the Billboard Charts. Collins had […]
...moreWriting, Joni Mitchell, LA and Other Things
Your poem sounds like a Joni Mitchell song I’ve never heard before.
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